Sanchez will be meeting with President Ma Ying-jeou, governmental officials, and various representatives from the business community.

The goals of his trip are to push for U.S. President Barack Obama's National Export Initiative — a plan to double U.S. exports by 2014 — and also to promote U.S. enterprises and products on behalf of the International Trade Administration (ITA).

The government prefers to remain low-key on the topic of U.S. beef prior to any domestic consensus being reached, and will not initiate any U.S. beef-related discussions with Sanchez, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said.

Association to Protest During Visit

Pan Lien-chou (潘連周), of the Republic of China Swine Association (中華民國養豬協會) announced yesterday that an emergency meeting would be convened next Monday to discuss if the halted March 5 protest activity should be resumed, now that a U.S. official could be witnessing the act.

The swine association had originally scheduled a grand-scale protest on March 5, but the plan was halted after chief of the organization Yang Kuan-chang (楊冠章) met with Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Bao-ji (陳保基) on the evening of Feb. 20.

Now that Sanchez is visiting, however, the group would have to reconvene and discuss the possibility of resuming the scheduled protest, he said.

TSU to Boycott Premier

Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信), a Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) lawmaker and also the party's legislative caucus convener, requested that Premier Sean Chen (陳冲) promise to not allow imports of any leanness-enhanced meat products into Taiwan within his term.

If Chen fails to make such a promise within the next 48 hours, the TSU's legislative caucus would initiate a boycott and prevent Chen from speaking at the Legislative Yuan on Feb. 24, Hsu threatened.

Hsu's statement stirred up only negative or conservative responses, as of yesterday.

People First Party (PFP) caucus whip Thomas Lee (李桐豪) said the PFP believes that the issue should be handled more rationally. Unless the ruling party had intentionally violated the public's will, the people will find the TSU's boycotting approach difficult to resonate with, he suggested.

Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘), caucus whip of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), said the DPP respects the TSU for their decisions, yet still needs to consider whether to follow suit in the boycott.

Tainan and Yilan Refuse US Beef

Yilan County Magistrate Lin Tsong-shyan (林聰賢) publicly rejected the purchase of leanness-enhanced U.S. beef, a statement which was eagerly supported by Tainan Mayor Lai Ching-te (賴清德).

The two mayors promised that they would stand together to safeguard the health of the public.